kurtster wrote: 

Yup I am thinking if the club gets to be huge, we should add co-hosts and stuff ;)

 oldslabsides wrote: 

Yeeeeeup.  You certainly do! ;)

Cool idea. I'm in.

Now: Rather than burn a bunch of CDs and burn a bunch of postage, a person could *cough* upload *cough* the tracks, zipped and renamed DeckPlans.zip or something. Most of us get some amount of FTP space with our ISP accounts (tho few people actually use it). If you're on a mac you can share the file directly from your mac (as long as you're online), and you can upload to mac.com and I'm sure a lot of similar services exist for the PCs. If push comes to shove I could host it. Of course you don't want to have it be "MyFavoriteMusicMix.zip" or linked to from a hundred different websites, so keep that in mind. Mac.com (me.com now ) files that are shared can have an expiration date assigned so that would keep a file from being searchable next year...

This is a great idea.  Could become challenging burning 50 discs at once and mailing, but what they hey.  It is all about the segue after all.

If this is culture, get me a club.

sorry - you KNOW it had to be said.

Geez, I dunno.  This would require me to actually do stuff.  And stuff.

is now in session...

I have been thinking about starting this up for quite a while, but just haven't gotten around to it.  My idea is pretty simple:  All my friends and family love music, we all come from different musical backgrounds, I love mixtapes (A LOT), I value my family and friends' taste in music (A LOT) - why not start a club that combines these things?

The WHAT 

1) This is a club.  I want to discuss and share and discover new music with my friends in the club.
2) Anyone is welcome to join this club.  By joining this club, you agree to co-host a month once every 5 months.
3) I want as many people to participate as possible.
4) I want to have an actual mixtape in my hot little hands every month because this club is for the love of the mixtape (it's a culture, people!) and not for the love of the playlist. 
   

Anyway, how will this go down, you ask? 

The LOGISTICS 

1) You will be placed in a mailing group of 5 people (this will be decided by the order in which you all mailed/messaged me). 
2) One person from your group will send out 4 CDs (or rather, 4 copies of the same mix).
3) The next month a new host from that same group will send out 4 CDs of his or her mix. 
4) There are currently 5 groups of 5.  One person from each group will co-host a month.
5) Co-hosts will rotate within those groups until everyone has had a chance to send out his or her mix to the group.  Once everyone within that group has sent out a mix, we will switch up the groups for a little variety.
6) Co-hosts will pick their own themes (and that theme can simply be "There is no Theme"), but I'll still leave a list of themes on this thread for anyone who might be stuck and in need of a little inspiration.
7) Please include a list of songs with the CD.
8) Cover art and liner notes are optional.
9) Post your playlist (and any cover art / liner notes you may have done) on the companion thread when people in your group start to receive their copy.
10) Discuss - feel the love!

Just think of it this way: Each month you will receive music from another part of the country, probably some music you have never heard, from cool people because ummm...I'm only friends with cool people.  And that's a fact.

WHAT I NEED FROM YOU

If you are interested in being a part of the Mixtape Culture Club, please send me an email, a private message, a Facebook message, or just frakin' call me with:

1) your mailing address
2) any ideas you may have for future themes

One final note about what I need from you: Any time you wish to leave the club, let me know and I'll arrange a day for you to fight your way out. ;)

The Companion Thread

I'm going to start up a thread at RP where hosts and club members can talk about the inspiration for the current month's mixtape, answer questions about unfamiliar artists, post downloadable cover art (if you don't want to print it out yourself when you mail it), etc. 

LINK TO COMPANION THREAD

Some themes to consider when it's your turn to host a month (Thank you Kat and Mairi!)

- Music for a crisp autumn day
- Music that would be fun to exercise or clean to, but that is not corny
- Foreign music
- Music for a road trip
- Music that would have been played at my prom (circa ——, depending on the creator) if my prom hadn't sucked so hard
- May I also suggest a podcast month (an all spoken-word cd)
- Music for a wedding that doesn't suck
- Funk and Soul
- Songs that all mention a color, day of the week, etc
- Foreign lands
- Late night sounds
- Sunday morning
- Cocktail mix

Until Next Time!!